


Legacy

by Dazzledfirestar



Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Brainwashing, Child Abuse, F/M, Kidnapping, Sexual Content, Torture, deprogramming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-26 15:09:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21376117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dazzledfirestar/pseuds/Dazzledfirestar
Summary: From the moment Hydra infiltrated SHIELD, there were always events going on behind the scenes to promote their agenda of fear. In an effort to preserve the history of the organization, Arnim Zola created an heir to Hydra’s founder, Johann Schmidt. His daughter was raised in his image, trained and conditioned to be the perfect heir and the perfect operative for Hydra. Sinthea Schmidt knows she is the future of Hydra, whether the powers that be like it or not. But power is never easy to get, and it’s not easy to hold onto. Especially when there are so few people to trust.She has one person that fills that role, though. He saved her from capture and from his superiors. She saved him from prison and Captain America. He was the only one she trusted and loved. Brock Rumlow was her partner in everything, and the two of them wreaked havoc all over the world. When that world falls into shambles, will she still have the support she’s gotten used to, or will her tenuous grip on her own humanity blow away like so much dust in the wind?
Relationships: Brock Rumlow/Sinthea Schmidt
Comments: 5
Kudos: 8
Collections: Captain America Big Bang 2019 | cabigbang





	Legacy

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Captain America Big Bang with beautiful art by the lovely [LittensTinyMittens](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Onasariel/pseuds/LittensTinyMittens). Thank you to [Ladydeathfaerie](https://ladydeathfaerie.dreamwidth.org) for the great job betaing this beast. 
> 
> [Art can also be found here](https://imgur.com/oS8IqsU)

**New Jersey, 1972**

Failure was not something he was used to. In fact, there were not many times when even something that looked like failure didn’t work out for the best for him and his plans. But this project…

Zola let out a grunt and tossed the notes down on the desk. He was running out of time. Maybe not literally—he was very certain the procedure he had planned for himself would work wonderfully—but the grim hand of death in the physical sense was still creeping closer. Either way, he had to get this particular project in working order before he had to succumb to the demands of his human form.

The fact that he’d already quite distanced himself from his own humanity may have been a sign of what was to come, but it wasn’t worthy of note. Not yet. Not with work still to do.

Zola chided himself quietly for losing focus as he tidied the papers on the desk. He was not going to let something as silly as frustration get in his way. This was important work. This was going to change the world.

He’d heard that kind of talk before but this time it wasn’t some ancient alien technology. It was pure, earth based science.

After all, what could be simpler than creating a life? It happened all the time. Accidents caused it. Carelessness caused it. His focus and determination should have made this the simplest project he’d ever undertaken.

And yet.

He glared at the phone on the desk as it started to ring. He reached out, ignoring how his hand shook a little. “Yes?”

“Dr. Zola, your medical team would like to speak to you.”

He sighed heavily. “Yes, yes. I’ll be there in a moment. Have Stark meet me in the labs afterward.”

He looked at the files again and shook his head. He just needed a little more time before he’d become more of a passive participant in his own research.

He grabbed the files and locked them away. “Life will go on,” He muttered to himself as he grabbed his other project notes and hurried out of the room. One way or another, he knew he’d spoken the truth.

**New Jersey, 1981**

It was a shame, really. Such a waste. If he still had the capacity for such things, he would have frowned. The woman had been the only success so far—who would have anticipated the difficulties that Erskine’s serum would have with carrying a fetus to term? —and the woman had the audacity to die in delivery.

A sound vaguely like a sigh came through the tinny speakers in the room. “Herr Schmidt would have been disappointed that we could not provide him with a proper male heir but… if it survives, it may be of use.”

The only other person in the room was staring at the hospital issue bassinet with a look that Zola did not want to analyse. Or at least the part of him that still clung to the shreds of humanity he had left didn’t. He could see the woman planning something.

Susan Scarbo was a loyal agent to the cause. Zola knew that she would follow any orders she was given, regardless of the optics or danger involved. She was fanatical about the history of Hydra, particularly Johann Schmidt. That in and of itself wasn’t odd among the agents that Hydra recruited but she was different. She would have fit in rather well amongst his comrades in Germany, or for that matter, some of the more blood-thirsty current members of the organization.

That same something about her made her the perfect woman for the job to come and he could see her planning her climb to the top through this infant. “You are horrible at hiding your intentions, Agent Scarbo.”

She made a soft, noncommittal noise as she scooped the infant up. “You are aware of the Red Room program, are you not, Doctor?”

“I am.”

She smiled down at the infant again. “I always thought their failure was starting too late.”

**Washington, DC, 1987**

It hurt. A lot. She knew it hurt more than it was supposed to but hurt wasn’t a reason to stop. That’s what she’d been taught. That was the rule. You don’t stop.

But it was harder to get up when it hurt.

“Sinthea.”

She swallowed hard, pushing up on her elbow. She couldn’t quite stop the squeak that left her at the sharp pain. “It’s broken…”

“Get up.”

“Mother…”

“Get. Up.” Susan stalked toward her and pulled her to her feet. “Again.”

Sinthea nodded, looking at the training course. She knew she couldn’t say no. She knew she had to do it. But somewhere she knew if she was broken, she was useless too.

“The bone will set wrong if it’s not looked at. Dr. Zola—”

“The machine isn’t here. Do it right or you can suffer.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“You know who you are.”

She started to climb, ignoring the tears in her eyes because those weren’t allowed either. “Yes.”

“You know what you must live up to.”

She grit her teeth and took more weight on her uninjured arm. “Yes.”

“Then do it. No excuses. Ever.”

She blocked out the pain as much as she could and ran the course. She stayed on her feet, tears mixed with sweat as she finished.

“I did not waste the last six years training you for you to give up.” Susan said as she pointed to the door. “Go. And tell them not to be gentle when they set the break.”

“Yes, Mother.” She couldn’t quite contain the anger in her voice as she spoke or as she moved through the halls toward the medical wing. She gave short, curt answers to all the questions the staff asked. She did what she was told but one of the nurses seemed a little put off by it.

“She’s just a child.” The woman could be heard from where Sinthea was waiting for one of the doctors to come and set her arm. “What are they trying to prove?”

Sinthea bristled visibly at the woman’s words. Her mother’s words—the complete opposite of the nurse’s—rang in her head.

_ They want you to be weak so that they can take your birthright away from you. _

Sinthea got up, tugging on the woman’s skirt. “Excuse me?”

The nurse made the mistake of thinking that Sinthea was a normal kid and she reached out to comfort her. The snap of her wrist breaking was audible through the room and a moment later, Sinthea was back in her seat and waiting as the guards near the door escorted the nurse out to be seen to herself.

Susan stood in the doorway with a smile on her face. “Set her arm, doctor. We have more to do today.”

**New Jersey, 1991**

The green glow of the room had been eerie when she was younger, but the lessons were vital—or so she was told—and now, she found it easy to focus on the lectures and lessons that happened in that bunker. In fact, she thought she got more out of these sessions than anything else she had to do.

Also, Dr. Zola didn’t try to kill her. That was getting more and more common these days. Her mother said she would just have to kill those who came after her—and she had, once so far—but it was nice to sit and read and listen for a while too.

The history of Hydra was important. Mistakes could be learned from, Dr. Zola told her over and over again. “Do not make the same mistakes your father did.”

She nodded. It was an old lesson but it seemed important to remember what hubris did to a solid plan. “But the major problem… SHIELD doesn’t have anyone like Captain America to oppose us anymore.”

“Doesn’t it? Are you sure?”

Sinthea frowned. “I… don’t know.” She hated admitting that, but at least she could here. It wasn’t like her other training.

“Then don’t assume. That is the same as assuming you could succeed against whatever secrets they have.”

“Secrets like me?”

She was sure if the face on the screen could raise an eyebrow, it would have.

“Perhaps. Or like me.” A tinny laugh filled the room. “The point is, you need to be prepared to think about threats like this. SHIELD, Hydra, other organizations that want power or what you could give them. Don’t trust any of it. Or anyone involved in it.”

“Does that mean you too?”

“So far, no. But that could change.” The voice was mostly flat as he spoke what was no doubt supposed to be a harsh truth. Even at her age though, she’d figured out that most of the people around her were more concerned with themselves than her.

Her teacher’s voice pulled her out of her thoughts again. “This means everyone, Sinthea.”

“I know.”

“You do?” That got a bit more inflection in his voice. “Your mother is on that list as well.”

She couldn’t stop the pout that formed. “I know.”

“Good.”

“Did my father trust anyone?”

That seemed to surprise the face on the screen. Or she imagined that flicker of green static. She wasn’t sure.

“No. Not really. He trusted the fear of his men that he could replace any of them on a whim. But that’s not the same thing. Now,” the tone in his voice told her the subject was now closed and they were moving on. “Your mission.”

“Yes?”

“Your target will be easy to get to. He is an old man now but apparently Secretary Pierce thinks he is a good test for you.”

“Why? I didn’t see anything in the file to tell me why this is for me.”

“The secretary has some interesting misconceptions on who can accomplish what and how. It is not a slight to your abilities. It’s a slight to your gender and age.”

“Oh.” Sin frowned a little more. “The file seems… incomplete. And the target has ties to other organizations.”

“And how did you find that out?”

She avoided the question and continued with her own. “Mother talks about the Red Room. Their training. This man was involved, yes?”

“As far as SHIELD knows.”

“What about what we know?”

“He funded some of their work. SHIELD would not approve of the type of research he was most interested in. I’m sure they won’t mind if he is dealt with. This is not the problem though. He is aware of some sensitive materials that, should SHIELD get a hold of him, could be very detrimental to Hydra.” The face on the screen smiled. “And your mother wants you tested against the program’s current recruits.”

“So, if I fail, don’t bother coming back.”

“And if you succeed, you will be thought of differently by those higher up in Hydra.”

“Differently, how?”

“That depends on how well you do your job.” The face shifted as much as an image on a screen could. “You are wise beyond your years at times, Sinthea. Do not get arrogant. Ego causes the downfall in many.”

She nodded, turning on her heel to leave. She had a flight to catch and more research to read. Those sensitive materials might be important, after all.

**Istanbul, 1991**

The pillars and light and sound made for excellent cover as she moved through the city. One more lost child didn’t really ping on most people’s radar. She blended in with other people, now fleeing into any nearby country from the former Soviet states. One of those people was in the apartment across a small back street from where Sin was hiding in the shadows.

The intel on the man had been limited, even more so when it came to how he’d managed to get to Istanbul from Moscow, but she’d seen a few girls just a little older than her coming and going from the kitchen doors. Most of them were speaking Russian to each other but any communications with anyone else seemed flawless. No accents to be noted, no missteps in the language. The program had clearly sent it’s best with their money man.

There seemed to be several different camps of girls coming together here. Likely they had all fled the falling government and the newly free former soviets. That would be her way in. She ducked into the light in the street to cross and go to the door the other girls had gone in through.

The woman in the kitchen was swift with her words, if nothing else. “No beggars.”

Sin had expected this and knew the reply she needed to give. She spoke in Russian first. “I was sent by Madame B. The students in Odessa are dead. So are the instructors there. I am all that is left.”

The old woman turned, wiping her hands clean. “Your name?”

She hoped Susan’s research had been correct. If the girl she was stealing the name from has survived or the information wasn’t good, this mission was going to get a lot messier. It wouldn’t fail but it would be messier. “Zina Shwetz.”

The woman looked her over. “You’re younger than the others that made it this far. You must be very talented.”

“I do what is required.”

She raised an eyebrow at that but nodded. “Upstairs. Your new teacher will wish to see you.”

She nodded, heading up the narrow staircase that the woman had pointed her toward. The room at the top of the stairs was full of girls. The older ones appeared to be around 15, but there were a few girls her age. The older girls looked at her dismissively as she moved toward the door that must have led to the man’s office and opened it. She made note to take them out too when she left.

Even as she slipped into the room, the man’s voice bellowed at her. “Close the door.”

She did as he said and turned to face him. She didn’t wait for him to say anything else before she made her move. The quick gasp and the widening of his eyes as he saw the gun in her hand where it hadn’t been a moment before, was all that he gave her as she fired. His head snapped back and the dark wall behind his head was splattered with blood and brains.

She turned to the door, not exiting the room as the older girls kicked in the door. The door was too narrow for them to come in more than one at a time and she gunned them down as they tried to get to her.

The younger girls didn’t look shocked at the violence, but there was a slight air of surprise in the hallway. “I can give you a new purpose.” She said in Russian to the girls. “There will be a helicopter in a few minutes on the roof. Come with me, or burn in the rubble I will leave behind.”

Unsurprisingly to her, the girls came with her.

**Washington DC, 2004**

“I don’t need back-up.” She was willing to admit it sounded a little petulant. “I work better on my own. What am I going to do with a team?”

“You’re going to play nice and do your job.” Susan sounded particularly short tempered with her, which only said that this hadn’t been her idea and it wasn’t an idea she was a fan of. “They’re not completely useless. At least a few of them are good agents.”

“For who?”

“For Hydra. SHIELD is a convenient cover. Didn’t the machine teach you that?” The bitterness in Susan’s voice was obvious. Sin knew why, of course. She was an adult now, and as with any child, the influence her mother had on her was fading. Susan feared losing her place through Sin and she knew it.

“Zola taught me many things.” She nodded. “This team is entirely Hydra agents?”

“Yes. Now get on the damn plane.” Susan threw her bag at her, and Sin couldn’t help but smile.

“Yes, Mother.”

She chuckled a little as she stepped onto the transport. The laugh died as she saw the reaction to her presence. She sighed heavily, tossed her gear into one of the compartments, and sat down.

She heard his voice before she saw the man commanding this particular team. “So, this is the asset?”

“I’m not an asset. I’m an operative.” She didn’t bother getting up, and she crossed her arms across her chest. “This is my mission. You are here to help me if I need it.”

“If, huh?”

“Yes. If.” She sat back, taking a look at this man. If he hadn’t been smirking at her, as if her insistence that she didn’t need him or his team was cute, he might have been attractive. The good looking ones usually turned out to be useless or, at best, annoyingly persistent in their assumption that they were irresistible to girls like her.

Time would tell which one this man turned out to be. Or what combination of the two he was. Either way, she wasn’t going to let a pretty face distract her.

“We’ll see.” He shrugged, stepping back to brief his team. Most of them paid attention well enough, only throwing the occasional look of disbelief toward her during his information dump. “Anything you want to add, sweetheart?”

She raised an eyebrow at him and shook her head. “You’ve passably covered it. Just don’t get in my way, and we’ll be just fine.”

That got a few nervous laughs but those died quickly. The commander dismissed them to do whatever they had to do during the trip and the jet took off. “What’s your problem?”

“I don’t like working with anyone. Don’t take it personally.” She shrugged.

He smiled again, but it was a mean look. “I get it. SHIELD has a couple girls just like you now.”

“I know. I brought most of them in.”

That got a bit more of a reaction. “Nobody has the clearance to know anything about that operative.”

“Congratulations. You know something no one else does now.”

His smile shifted. “Okay. What should I call you?”

“Schmidt.”

“Guess you earned that.” He nodded.

“It’s my name. Always has been.”

“Okay, Schmidt.”

“What about you?”

“Rumlow.”

She nodded. “Okay. Make sure your team doesn’t fuck this up.”

He chuckled as he walked away and she had to admit, she liked that laugh. She wanted to hear it again.

**Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia 2004**

Her back hit the wall and had it been safe to make any noise at that moment, she would have told her current companion off for the disrespect. Even if that disrespect probably stopped the group of national police officers from spotting them. She ignored the heat from his arm across her chest and waited for the men to move away.

“The extraction point is compromised.”

“What was your first clue?”

“You want to get out of here or not?”

“I can do that without you, but I’m sure Pierce would whine about it.” She listened intently to the men that wandered past the narrow alley they were in. “Do I get to know what the hell went wrong?”

“You would if I knew.” The sigh he let out told her more than he probably intended to let her know. He was almost as pissed off about his team fucking up as she was. “One of the surveillance points was compromised, which means these cops had access to the entire mission. A couple agents got out. Probably trying to do the same thing we are.” 

“I hope they’re having better luck than we are.” She looked down the alley toward the other street, a block away from what would have been their extraction point. “This way.”

“Why?”

“Because I fucking said so.” She snapped at him before shaking her head. She was learning quickly that that wasn’t the best way to deal with this man and they could be stuck together for a while. “There’s an old Hydra safe house. Cold war era but it should still be okay.”

“It’s not Hydra anymore. It’s SHIELD’s.”

“Well then maybe you can put in a call to SHIELD when we get there.” She started down the alley, turning in the direction of the safehouse when she reached the street. She was comforted—even if she hated admitting it—that he was beside her as she started to walk. She stepped closer, slipping her arm through his. He got the idea fast enough and adjusted, putting his arm around her as they walked.

She smiled, just a little, before she spoke in Spanish. “Maybe you’re not completely shit at this.”

“You’d be surprised.” He replied in Spanish so she continued on that line. It would draw less attention than speaking English.

“Not just a soldier, huh?”

“No, just really good at that part.”

She reacted without thinking as a few officers rounded the next corner. She pulled him close, drawing him in as she leaned against the wall and kissed him deeply. The cops wouldn’t look for long if they just kept going and public displays of affection weren’t rare in Bolivia.

Rumlow played it up, pulling her in and grabbing her ass as the kiss stretched on. She let out a soft little moan as the officers got closer, but she wasn’t entirely sure if it was entirely fake. She dismissed it though. It wasn’t the time to think too hard on that.

As the officers turned around a corner, she pulled back. “You’re pretty good at that part too.” She smirked at him and kept walking.

It seemed to take him a second to pull himself together before he was at her side again, his arm slung over her shoulder. “You always avoid cops like that?”

“Not always. But sometimes.” She smiled up at him again, her eyes lingering on his lips a little longer than they should have. “In the right company.”

“Could have warned me.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” She smirked. She couldn’t help herself. This wasn’t usually her style. She worked alone. But this felt easier. “Let’s just get home.” She kept her voice low but spoke as if the officers could hear her.

“Figure it out when we’re behind closed doors, huh?”

“Something like that.”

**Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, 2004**

A week. They’d been stuck in the safehouse, which didn’t feel particularly safe, for seven straight days.

To say things were a little awkward when they weren’t on high alert was an understatement. She hated it. The feeling that something else should have come from that kiss but hadn’t because the fucking Bolivians wanted them dead.

It was official. She hated Bolivia.

So, she focused on things she could affect. “We’re running low on food.”

Rumlow looked up at her and nodded. “I’ll go. You stay here.”

“Why?”

“Because if anything else goes wrong and you don’t go back, Scarbo is going to fucking kill me.”

She turned around again, shaking her head as she counted water bottles. When she spoke, it was more a mutter to herself. “Could at least die happy and get laid first, but no.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing. Just go.” She sighed heavily and set everything back in place.

When she turned around, he was right there. “You think I don’t want that?”

Obviously, he’d heard her. She cursed softly, trying to focus despite his closeness to her. “Want what?”

“You.” He stepped a little closer, crowding into her space.

She didn’t step back. She didn’t want to. “You’ve got a funny way of showing it.”

He rested his hands on the counter behind her. “I don’t want to be on guard when whatever is going to happen between you and me happens. I wanna enjoy it. No watching the door. No listening for the comms. No distractions.”

She groaned softly at his words. They made sense. She understood his reasoning, but that didn’t stop her from surging forward and kissing him deeply again. “You damn well better be worth the wait.”

He smirked, kissing her again. “I am, sweetheart. Promise.”

She moaned into the kiss, pulling him closer and slowly working her way toward telling him that he could be as distracted as he needed to be, but she didn’t want to wait, when there was a bang at the door.

The yelling on the other side was in Spanish. It seemed that the local authorities had figured out where they were hiding.

“Back window.” He said softly, moving to grab a duffle bag full of ammo and weapons. Sin nodded, following him to the window.

She paused, digging a thermite grenade out from the bag she had picked up and she set the timer before tossing it in. “Might want to start running.” She pushed him forward and broke into a sprint. Even if the cops didn’t get through the front door, the explosion and fire would be enough to drive them back. They could feel the heat when it blew. She imagined at least a couple of the cops didn’t make it out.

“There’s an airstrip outside town. Could steal a plane.” He murmured to her as he leaned in, concealing them from the fire truck that sped by.

“You couldn’t have thought of that a week ago?”

“We were trying to be low profile then.” He smirked. “I didn’t want to show you all my tricks at once.”

She shook her head but smiled as she flagged down a cab. The trip to the airstrip was quick and she paid the cabbie triple to keep his mouth shut. They approached a private jet and it only took two shots to take down the passengers.

“Keeping things simple, huh?”

“Always.” She smiled as the pilot came out and she shot him too. Rumlow wasn’t wrong, she’d always kept things simple. No loose ends. No survivors or witnesses.

He was going to be a complication, though. She could tell already.

**Washington, DC, 2004**

Pierce was less than pleased. Honestly, she thought he’d be happy she’d brought at least one of his men back in one piece but apparently that wasn’t good enough. “Next time, don’t send your rookies.” She shrugged as she sat on his couch in this office. She wasn’t entirely sure how she got the access she did, being that she didn’t actually exist. But there was a file on some alias or another and that alias had access to a lot of SHIELD.

She found herself wondering if Rumlow had to deal with this shit too, though she was sure he’d been a little less confrontational than she was.

“The team was dealt with but your exit was a little over the top, wouldn’t you say?”

“If your extraction had shown up a week earlier in a secondary location, it wouldn’t have been necessary.”

“You have an answer for everything, don’t you?”

“I do. Because it’s what happened. It would have been smooth sailing without the team. If you need to send me with back-up in the future, I will pick it.”

“You don’t give orders, young lady.”

She sighed. “Fine. But I will give you a short list. Otherwise, I will work on my own.”

She could see the hate in his eyes, but he nodded. “No more fire-bombing the local authorities.”

“Fine.”

“Your mother wants to see you.” He turned away from her and for one second, she seriously considered taking her shot. Things would get messy, complicated, if she killed him but, oh, was it tempting.

She got up, moving to the door. “Secretary Pierce? You know everything about me, don’t you?”

“I’ve read your file.”

“The real one?” She smiled as he looked a little confused. “You know who my father was.”

“Yes.”

“Does that scare you?”

“I’m not scared of you, no.”

“Maybe you should be.” She closed the door behind herself and moved toward Susan’s office. It was a few floors down, distinctly middle management territory, which no doubt rubbed her the wrong way, but it was easier to keep her cover within SHIELD that way. As she stepped into the elevator, she smiled. “Agent Rumlow.” She nodded and set the floor she was headed to.

“Did you get detention?” He chuckled.

“Just a lecture.” She glanced back at him. “So, when are you planning on finishing what you started?”

He smirked at her. “Can’t get enough, huh?”

“You promised.”

“Tonight? You gonna be in town for a bit?”

“Tonight works.” She glanced over her shoulder as the doors opened. “I might find a reason to stick around.”

**Chicago, Illinois, 2006**

The soft patter of rain on the window, and the roll of distant thunder was lulling her to sleep. The warmth of the chest she was resting her head on wasn’t helping either. She turned, resting her chin on his pec and she smiled. “How long do you have?”

“Couple days. Took some personal time.” He idly played with her hair as he spoke. “What about you?”

“I don’t know. A week maybe. You know how my schedule is.” She shifted, stretching up to kiss his lips. The lazy comfort of the cheap motel room was soothing and being there with him, even for a few days, felt better than it probably should have.

They didn’t get a lot of time together. Between wanting to keep things as simple as possible, keeping things a secret from both of their superiors and the basics of scheduling meet ups between two people with random, unpredictable schedules, it was difficult to get time like this.

She wasn’t going to let it go to waste.

She shifted a little more, throwing one leg over him and pulling herself over to straddle his lap. He chuckled softly, his hands resting on her hips as she leaned in to kiss him properly. “Just can’t get enough, can you?”

“Never.” She smiled, biting his bottom lip lightly. “I would have thought you’d have figured that out by now.”

“Keep thinking you’re going to change your mind. Wake up and realise you deserve better than this.”

“Never.”

“Never’s a long time, Sin.” He groaned as her lips moved down to his throat. “I’m not going to hold you to that.”

She sat up, looking at him with a small frown on her face. “Why not?”

“This job ain’t exactly the good relationship kind of gig.”

“And I get that.” She started kissing down his neck again. She didn’t want to talk about relationship stuff. That was a complication. Her feelings for him were a complication, and the fact that he brought it up only made her shy away more. She didn’t want to lose him, she didn’t want to push him away, but she couldn’t talk about feelings. Not when there were better ways to communicate that kind of thing. “Now stop distracting me from what I was doing.” She grinned, biting at his neck. “Unless you want me to stop.”

“No, I really don’t want that.” He chuckled, his breath hitching as she sucked hard on one of his nipples. “Jesus, Sin…”

She smiled up at him, slowly kissing, biting and sucking lower and lower on his body. She’d never had to deal with softer feelings and being vulnerable before he became a part of her life. In fact, most of that was frowned upon before him. Either way, the subject needed to be changed to something a little more enjoyable. That was definitely something she excelled at.

**?????? 2008**

She didn’t see who took the shot. Not at first, anyway. She caught a glint on the nearby rooftop but it wasn’t light off a site. She knew what that looked like. No, this was something completely different. But she didn’t have time to go after the sniper. Her focus was on the woman she was dragging behind cover. 

The shot was good, but either on purpose or a lack of skill, it wasn’t an instant kill shot. Susan was gasping, fighting for air as blood poured from her throat. There was nothing Sin could do and she knew it. Every second dragged but there was nothing to do but wait. She felt like she should have been angrier but the only thing she could feel was shock, she could feel herself going numb.

She was sure if Susan could speak she would say that Sin had failed her. All her work, and she couldn’t even protect her own mother. It was a waste. She was sure that would be what her mother’s last words would have been had she been able to speak.

But the fear in her eyes at the knowledge she was dying overpowered that. Sin took her hand silently and squeezed it. It was the least she could do. Letting her know she wouldn’t die alone. That she’d be remembered. That was important. More important than chasing down a sniper she couldn’t catch.

When the SHIELD agents came upon her, she was almost relieved. “There was a sniper. Watch your men. I couldn’t track them.”

“You weren’t supposed to track him.”

Her blood ran cold as she slowly looked up. These weren’t agents she knew. Not one of them. Her hand twitched as she let go of Susan’s now limp fingers. She was gone, and Sin wasn’t entirely sure she wouldn’t be joining her shortly. “Pierce.”

“He said you were smart.”

Her hand moved to her sidearm and she drew it. She got a few shots off, taking out two of the agents before the rest of them got a hold of her. She fought hard, hearing a few bones snap under her assault. She felt the prick of a needle in her neck and the world started to fade.

“Take her to the vault.”

**Washington DC 2008**

She didn’t panic. Panic never helped anyone in any situation. She took stock of where she was and what she could figure out before she moved and gave away that she was awake. Her head hurt. Her arms and legs were strapped down. There was an IV in her arm and she could hear voices around her. Mostly men. Probably Pierce’s men. She pulled against the bonds but they were tight and heavy. They’d taken the serum into consideration. Unless this was all built for someone else.

There were rumors, of course, and they were starting to make more sense. She’d been a rumor herself so she was in no hurry to write off another one.

“She’s awake.”

With the advantage lost, she pulled at the bonds with some serious effort, headbutting one of the guards that tried to hold her down.

“Keep her still. She’s fighting!”

“Pierce hires the best, huh?” she sneered at the men working over her. “Does it make you feel big? Tying me up like this?” She laughed at them.

One of the techs that she couldn’t see was yelling at the ones in front of her. “Hold her still. She’s just a girl!”

She smirked. “Would a girl be that much of a threat? You’re pathetic.” She wasn’t going to go down without a fight. She’d cause any damage she could before they got rid of her. She’d leave a mark. “Even tied up, I’m more than you can handle.”

One man got too close and she surged up, teeth bared. The spurt of blood hit the machines behind her as she ripped at his throat. She spit the flesh in her mouth out in the face of the second tech.

“Sinthea, you really shouldn’t antagonize these men. They can make things much worse for you.” Pierce’s voice entered the room before he did. He glanced at the dying man on the floor. She’d managed to get his jugular. “Clean that up, gentlemen.”

The remaining techs scrambled, clearly terrified.

Sin ignored them completely. They weren’t worth her time. Not with a real target in front of her. “I’m surprised you’re here. You usually don’t get your hands dirty.”

‘This is a special occasion.” He shrugged and stepped forward, avoiding the puddle of blood. “I’m going to give you a normal life, Sinthea. A peaceful one.”

“I like my life.”

“That’s because you don’t know any different. You should never have been put in this position. I’m going to do the right thing for you. What Zola should have done from the beginning.”

“Why?” She fought her bonds again.

“Because, things need to be simple. No complications. No… distractions.”

Her eyes went wide. Pierce didn’t do anything that wasn’t deliberate. He didn’t choose words carelessly. He wasn’t just doing this because she was a threat. Somehow, he’d found out the truth. She was dividing Brock’s loyalty. That must have been unforgivable. “You son of a bitch.”

Pierce stepped closer again, not within range of any damage she could cause him but close enough that he could drop his voice a little. “It’s for the best. The two of you would just get in each other’s way. You’ll be happy.” He stood a little straighter, motioning to one of the guards. “But I’m not as cruel as you think I am, Sinthea. You can say goodbye.”

She cursed under her breath as the guards brought Rumlow in. He tried to move forward when he saw what was going on, but they held him fast. “What the fuck—”

“She deserves better. You can’t disagree with that.” Pierce motioned to her. “She deserves a real life. This is for the best.”

His eyes didn’t leave her, even as Pierce droned on about normalcy and safety and the greater good. “Sin…”

“He killed Susan. He’s going to kill me.”

“You won’t die. The serum will see to that. Your father’s legacy will keep you safe now and you’ll live a full life, away from all of this.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, asshole.” She muttered and let out a long sigh. “Brock,” she hesitated just for a moment. It was an awful time to say something like this for the first time, but she wasn’t going to get another shot at it. “I love you.”

For a second, he looked like someone had punched him in the gut. She watched the same hesitation she’d felt sweep over him before he spoke. “I love you too.”

“Then you know this is best for her. Let her go.”

“You’re not giving him a choice.” She didn’t bother trying not to sound angry. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

“Lock her in.” Pierce turned around to leave. “Make sure he sees everything.”

“You fucking coward!” She screamed after him as the techs forced a bite guard into her mouth. Her vision whited out, her head filled with fiery pain. It felt like her body was going to shake through the bonds and her head was going to explode. She couldn’t stop herself from screaming through the bite guard and then…

Nothing.

**Santa Cruz, California, 2009**

“You’re sure this is my apartment?” She looked around and frowned. Nothing looked familiar. That wasn’t new, really. Nothing ever looked familiar since the accident. Erica was used to that part but she’d hoped coming home—or where they told her home was—would trigger something.

She didn’t remember what happened. She’d seen footage of the train crash. She’d seen footage of her and another woman who looked like her mother getting on the train. But everything—her entire life—was gone. The doctors had told her it was related to severe trauma and head injuries and it was a miracle that she didn’t have any other issues because of it all. She was thankful for that, but it was scary, not really knowing who you were, or what your life was like.

She’d cried a lot in those first weeks. Out of fear. Frustration. But the agents from SHIELD and the medical staff had been very patient. She would be grateful for that for the rest of her life, she was sure.

“I hate that rug.”

That got a bit of a chuckle out of the agent with her. Agent Sitwell had been there since she woke up in a SHIELD medical facility. He’d been a great help but he always seemed nervous. It was an odd thing for a government type to be jumpy. She was pretty sure it was at least partially an act. “Well, it’s yours. If you want to toss it out, you can.”

She made a soft, noncommittal noise as she studied the art and photos on the walls. Her parents, friends, a painting of a frog in bright colors. Blues, greens, pinks.

“Just give it time, Erica. You’ve been through a lot. It’ll take time.”

“So, they tell me.” She nodded slowly, not looking back at him. “Thanks. I’m sorry I’m not as happy about all this as I should be. It’s just… strange. This whole life I don’t remember…”

“It might not be permanent.”

“But it might be.”

“You know who you are. You can build from that too. You have a lot of life left.” He shrugged.

She smiled and nodded. “I know. But people want to know a person’s past. I don’t have one.”

“Yes, you do, it’s just… fuzzy.”

“That’s a nice way to put it.” She sighed heavily and picked up a picture of herself as a kid with her parents. Her mother had died in the accident. Her father had died when she was little. It felt wrong that she couldn’t remember them. Almost disrespectful. She hoped she’d at least get that back one day. “Really, Agent Sitwell. I do appreciate your help. Thank you.”

“If you need anything, you know you can call me.” He smiled and stepped back toward the door.

“I know. Between you and Dr. Sinclair, I’m sure everything will work out.” She smiled and went to the door. “Really, thank you.”

“My pleasure.” He smiled back and left her alone in her apartment to figure out what to do next.

It seemed like someone had cleaned the place up since she’d last been there. There was nothing spoiled in the fridge. There was nothing at all there, so she thought it best to make a trip to the store soon. She made a list of all the usual things she’d need and a few extras, just in case. It all felt relatively normal but something still seemed off.

“I’m just tired…” she told herself out loud. A good night’s sleep. That was what she needed. She was sure of it.

Except, even as she said it, she knew that, since the accident, sleep hadn’t been that simple. Every night, she’d had nightmares. Vague, bloody, awful nightmares. Dr. Sinclair had told her that, even though she couldn’t remember the trauma of the accident, her brain was working through the things that she had likely seen that day. It was a good sign, she said. A sign that her brain was healing.

But in the middle of the night, alone in the dark, it was hard to keep that in mind.

It was easier as she developed a routine. Jogging on the beach in the morning. Pick up groceries and a coffee on the way home. Maybe stop by the local bookstore—because they needed the support—and go home to read whatever she’d picked up.

Some days, the routine didn’t help as much. She found herself googling the train crash, trying to figure out what happened; trying to see if she could find the source of her nightmares.

Sometimes they weren’t even really nightmares. Or at least, they didn’t start out that way. She remembered the sound of soft rain on a window. A voice near her ear saying things that made her blush, if she thought of them when she was awake. She’d write whatever details she could remember down, terrified she’d forget them too. But none of it seemed to make any sense. None of it seemed to fit together properly.

She didn’t bring it up though. It sounded crazy, even to her, and she didn’t want anyone to think there was more wrong with her than there already was. The routine did help, just like they said it would and, after a few months, she had given up looking for information on the crash. There wasn’t much anyway, no doubt because of the SHIELD connection.

She’d learned that part of it all quickly when she’d woken up. She didn’t get answers unless they were harmless. Or as close to harmless as things could get in those early days. She was a little ashamed at how she’d lashed out, but again, she was told it was understandable. She was frightened, after all. Perfectly normal reaction, Dr. Sinclair told her. Nothing to be ashamed of.

Erica did apologize. A lot. Especially to the orderly she accidentally hit during that time. He’d seemed surprised by that, but she felt better once he’d accepted the apology.

SHIELD was feeling distant, though, as the months rolled on and her life started to take shape again. She even felt like her memory was getting better. Maybe it wasn’t showing in ways she wanted but she felt life coming back to her and her home. Things were comfortable again, the way they were supposed to be.

Except the dreams, of course. They were always there. And they were so real. It was hard to write it all off as nothing but her healing mind, but she tried. She tried hard to ignore it all.

She even told herself she was imagining things when she thought she saw a man that looked a little bit familiar in the neighborhood. She kept noticing him. At the coffee shop, on the beach—though he never looked like he was enjoying it, at the grocery store. It was almost like he wanted her to see him there. Like she should have known him or something.

She wrote it off, though. She’d been too focused on herself to notice him before, she reasoned. It was silly. It was paranoid.

It wasn’t even like he was there more than anyone else in the neighborhood. She went days or weeks without seeing him.

She had almost forgotten about him as she pulled into the garage for her building. She made note to let the super know that the lights were still flickering. She was used to the shadows, though, as she moved toward the door.

She jumped when a hand closed around her arm. She was spun around and fear took over. She looked up at the man holding her arm and tried to scream but she couldn’t make a sound.

“Sin…” He looked her over in a way that felt far too knowing. She tried to pull away, shaking in terror, but something about his voice sounded so familiar. She couldn’t place it, but she couldn’t move to try to get enough distance to think clearly. “Aw, baby, what did they do to you?”

She swallowed hard, trying to pull her arm away again. “I… I think you’re looking for someone else.”

“No, I’m not.” He pulled her closer again. “You know who you are?”

“What?” Her eyes went wide. “What are you talking about?”

“Sin, come on. I know you’re in there.”

Her dreams, her nightmares. She tried to push it back, tried to tell herself that her mind was playing tricks on her. A tear slid down her cheek and she shook her head. She knew his voice because she’d dreamt about it. That wasn’t possible. She had to get away. She knew that much. “Please… please let me go.”

‘Sin—”

“Stop calling me that!” She shook her head again. “I’m not who you think I am. My name is Erica.”

He sighed heavily. “No, sweetheart. It’s not.”

She tried to run, turning toward the door, but he pulled her back, wrapping an arm around her and pressing her back to his chest. Before she could respond, he held something over her face. She fought back but he was too strong for her and the world went dark around her.

“Sorry, babe. But I promise, I’ll get you back.”

**??????, 2009**

She woke up slowly on something hard. Cement or heavily packed dirt—she couldn’t quite tell which—saw her sitting up slowly. She was dizzy, sore and cold. It took longer than she could figure to put together what had happened. She was just remembering the voice that had sounded so familiar when the voice filled the small cell.

“You’d be disgusted with yourself right now, if you knew the truth.”

She scrambled back, blinking into the shadows to try to find the source of the voice. “Please… let me go. I won’t say anything, please!” She felt herself shaking again, fear taking over as her brain fully woke up.

“Don’t beg.” He snapped at her and sighed. “What do you remember about your life?”

“My… my life? Nothing, really. Bits and pieces.”

“Your name? Work? What pieces?”

“I… my name is Erica Holstein. I grew up in Washington. My father died when I was little. My mother died about six months ago…”

“Well you got that part at least.” He muttered, stepping into the light that came through the high, dirty windows. “Can you see it? Any of it? Or are you just spitting up what SHIELD fed you?”

“What?”

“Jesus, they made you dumb as a brick too.” He stepped closer, grabbing her arm and pulling her to her feet. She couldn’t stop herself from screaming but that only made it worse. “I didn’t want it to be like this, sweetheart. But you gotta see the truth.”

“What truth? What are you talking about?” She could hear her voice shaking and getting shrill as she spoke.

“You think you grew up in a nice little house? Probably went to a good high school too, right?”

“Y-yes…”

“Remember your history classes?”

“Kind of.”

“You should. It’s your history. It’s where you came from.” He pushed her down into a chair and leaned over her, his hands on the arms of the chair, holding her in place. “Your name is Sinthea Schmidt. The Red Skull is your father. You are the future of Hydra.”

It didn’t make any sense. Even on a basic level. How could a man that had been dead for 70 years be her father? That was impossible. “You’re crazy.”

“Maybe.” He smiled but it felt dangerous, making him smile. “But that doesn’t make it not true.”

She pushed back against the back of the chair. She wanted to get away from him. She wanted to go home.

“You’re pathetic. Pierce should have just killed you instead of this. That would have been kinder.”

“Are you going to?”

“Kill you? No.” He sighed, pulling back a little. “But you’re probably going to wish I would.”

**?????, 2009**

Everything hurt. She couldn’t even cry anymore. There was no point. And the thing that was really bothering her was that she was starting to wonder if he was right. She tried to push it out of her head as he pushed her to remember her life but the longer she was there, the harder it was to rationalize any of it.

Which was, no doubt, the point.

She told herself to hang onto that; to hang onto her sense of self.

The problem was, all the self she possessed had been handed to her by SHIELD, which she was now learning may have had ulterior motives. But that didn’t make sense to her either.

“You listening to me?”

She sat up a little straighter, nodded. “Yes. Sorry.”

That didn’t seem the be the right response as he sighed heavily and shook his head. “Christ, when are you gonna start fighting back a little? This is getting boring.”

Boring didn’t sound good. It sounded very, very bad.

“You think I’m doing this shit for the fun of it?”

“N-no…” but she wasn’t really sure about that. He didn’t seem to enjoy hurting her. Not really. But there was something there that told her that if she wasn’t who he kept saying she was, he might just like this too much. “I… I don’t get why SHIELD would do all this…”

“Because you’re a threat. And it wasn’t SHIELD. It was Pierce. He wanted you out of the way.”

“Why?”

“You aren’t listening again.” He shook his head and she didn’t see the smack coming. She should have… or if she was who he said she was, she would have seen it coming. It was all getting too muddy in her head. “You’re pathetic. But I promised I’d get through to you, so I damn well will.”

She did her best not to react when he pulled her to her feet.

“Maybe you just need a different kind of motivation.” He dragged her into another room. One that looked very similar to the one he kept her in when he wasn’t trying to teach her something, or forcing her to practice skills she’d never learned—that bullseye was beginner’s luck,  she’d  told him. He hadn’t liked that at all—or smacking her around. She blinked into the dark and heard a small, muffled noise.

“I’ll make you a deal, girl.” He turned on the light and the man tied to a chair in front of her came into focus. He was beaten, bloodied and gagged. Her eyes went wide. Her captor held a gun out to her. “Kill him and I’ll let you go.”

Her eyes went wide. “I… what? No! I c-can’t…”

“Yes, you can. Win your freedom, sweetheart.”

“What if I just take the gun and shoot you?” She knew it was a bluff, and that he’d call her on it but it felt a little better to pretend she could get herself and whoever the tied up man was out of there.

He laughed. “Baby, I wish you would try but you don’t got that in you. They stole that part of you. Just trying to get it back for you now.” He pressed the gun into her hand. “His life for your freedom.”

She swallowed hard, holding the gun up. Her hands shook and she wasn’t entirely sure she could make the shot.

_ Focus, Sinthea. If you can’t do that, you aren’t any use to anyone. _

She shook her head, trying to mute the voice that showed up every now and then that sounded suspiciously like… her mother? But she couldn’t remember her mother so that didn’t make any sense, either.

She gripped the gun in both hands and her finger twitched on the trigger. “I… I can’t…” she shook her head. “I can’t kill someone.”

Her captor nearly growled before pulling out his own gun and firing on the man. “He was dead already. You didn’t save shit.”

**???????, 2009**

_ Get up Sinthea. Stop being so weak. No one will take pity on you. _

She woke with a start, coughing as her lungs got rid of the last of the water that had filled them earlier. Her captor was getting more desperate and the lessons had devolved into torture.

_ Get up, you are your father’s daughter. You will earn that legacy. _

She shook her head again. The pictures and voices in her mind felt sharp enough to cut skin, but she couldn’t force them down this time. She groaned, clutching her head as her mind started to crack.

It was like playing a movie in reverse.

_ Hold her still. She’s just a girl! _

Flashes of a bank vault filled her head, blood on the floor and pain beyond imagining.

A view out over the Potomac, at least 40 floors up, and a man in a three piece suit who looked more than a little upset.

_ You don’t give orders, young lady. _

Heat and smoke and noise, with concrete under her feet and a warm body in front of her, pulling her close so the cops couldn’t spot them.

_ You’re pretty good at that part too. _

She groaned as her mind spun and ached. The flood of memories made her stomach churn and she nearly threw up.

The low, green glow of a face on a screen. The room hot, despite being so far underground.

_ Do not make the same mistakes your father did. _

_ Get up, Sinthea. _

She rested her head back against the wall, wishing it was cooler so that she could fight off the headache that was coming on. It all started to make sense. It was piecemeal but she knew the truth. SHIELD had lied to her. They’d made up a life that had never existed after they’d stolen hers.

No, not SHIELD… though they were culpable too.

Pierce.

She was going to kill him.

She heard the door open slowly, the squeak going right through her headache. “Good, you’re awake.”

“We need to go to Jersey.” She didn’t wait for him to realize what was going on before she climbed to her feet. “And if you ever hit me again, I’ll kill you myself.”

He smiled. “Never again, babe. Welcome home.” 

“Jersey. I need to talk to Zola.” She frowned a little more. “And I need a shower.”

**Washington DC, 2009**

It was like Pierce designed his home to act as the set of some political thriller. Maybe he hadn’t thought it through, or maybe he was used to knowing that the scary things in the shadows would listen to him. Either way, it was a dumb idea to have so many dark corners in a house when you were a high profile target.

She stepped out of the shadows when Pierce closed the door behind himself. “You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you?”

He froze, just for a second, but she saw the cracks in his façade. “He found you.”

“Of course, he did. You didn’t honestly think he’d swallow that fear mongering shit from you, did you?” She smiled and sat down. “You wanted his loyalty because he doesn’t flinch. Because he doesn’t scare easy.”

“You’re assuming a lot.”

“Is she?” Brock stepped in behind her, his hand on her shoulder. “So, you were full of shit then?”

The cracks in the façade got bigger. “I could just have you both killed.”

“But you won’t.” Sin smiled a little wider. “Because if you do, everything goes public.”

“You’re bluffing.”

“Are you willing to risk that?” Brock threw a file at Pierce. “After what you did to her?”

He took his time going through the file. The information had been provided by a friendly source. Sin had made promises to Zola and he had happily helped her find everything they needed. Pierce closed the file and looked up at her from his seat. “What do you want?”

“It’s simple, really. I’ll stay under the radar, doing what I’ve always done for Hydra. I may even do your dirty work for you if you stay out of my way and ask nicely,” She smiled at Brock, “In return, you give me your word that you won’t try this shit again.”

“Is that all?”

“Basically.” Sin stepped back. “And if I get even a rumor of you taking this out on Brock, or plotting against me again, I’ll come back here and take your fucking head.” She smiled sweetly, “After I release every dirty secret you have to the press.”

He sighed, putting his hand on the file. “If this gets out, I won’t be the only one that goes down.”

“I know that.” Sin shrugged. “But there are those of us who are better equipped to deal with that than say… you.”

He looked at Brock for a moment before he nodded, conceding the point. “Zola put you up to this?”

“No.” Brock shook his head. “I went after her as soon as I could get away from you. Didn’t talk to Zola until she suggested it.”

“He wants out.” Pierce tapped a finger on the file, obviously referring to Zola. “Did he tell you that?”

“He’s been telling me that since I was a kid.” Sin shrugged again. This was going nowhere. “Stop trying to deflect.”

“I’m not deflecting. Zola wants out of that bunker and what do you think will happen to the rest of us if he gets what he wants?”

Sin smiled. “I’m not worried about it.”

“You should be. He can outlast all of us.”

“I know there’s a point to all this.” Brock sighed heavily, clearly bored by the conversation.

“He can’t be allowed to leave that bunker.”

“And, what, you want me to make sure that doesn’t happen?”

“Exactly.”

Sin thought about it for a moment before she nodded. “I will unleash hell if you try to fuck me over.”

She didn’t wait for a reaction before she sank back into the shadows and let herself out of the house with Brock on her heels. Once they were off the grounds, she pulled out her phone. “I take it you heard all of that?”

“Yes. The undersecretary’s ambition has outgrown his wisdom. Interesting.” The tinny voice came through the speaker. “Keep a close eye on him.”

Sin smiled back at Brock. “Not a problem.”

**2012, New Jersey**

She stared at the paperwork in shock. Nothing usually set her off her game, but this? This was a nightmare. And that meant something coming from her. “When?”

She lifted her eyes to the screen in front of her. Zola had been difficult to digitize, but he appreciated the freedom it gave him and it was nice to have a screen that wasn’t as old as she was. He was experimenting with the visuals he could use.

“A few days ago. They found the Valkyrie in the arctic, half buried in the ice.”

“He… survived.” She couldn’t quite believe it. Captain fucking America was alive and from all reports, still in peak condition.

“His kind always do.” Zola sounded mildly disgusted with the entire situation. She couldn’t blame him for that. He had faced the man decades ago and didn’t seem fond of doing so again. “They are like roaches that way.”

“What do we do?” She flipped one of the pages. “We can’t kill him.”

“No, that is too high profile. But…” he made a thinking face. A little exaggerated but he was still working on the program. “We need more information. Perhaps he needs to be assigned somewhere… close.”

“It’s possible. No doubt Pierce will want to do the same.”

“Work may not be enough to subdue the Captain.”

She nodded, going over the information again. “There could be a way around that… if we play it right.”

“He will not see you coming if you do not approach as an agent, you know this.” Zola’s voice started to sound a little more enthusiastic.

“He wouldn’t see me coming anyway,” she shrugged.

“Arrogance, Sinthea.”

“The point is that he probably wants something… normal. Wants to know that he didn’t give his life for nothing, right?”

“That would fit with what we know of him, yes.”

“So, we show him that. Show him the good people he fell to protect.”

“Pierce will not want you so close to his operations.”

“Pierce doesn’t have a better idea and there’s no time to waste.”

Zola was quiet for a moment as he considered their options. “Then what do you plan to do, Sinthea?”

She grinned. It was a dark, but gleeful look. “I’m going to make Pierce buy me a house.”

**2012, Fredericksburg, VA**

The house was classic. Old brick and stone with all the modern comforts and a great backyard and patio, on which one could do all the normal entertaining and manning of grills over beers and wine. The thing was, it wasn’t usually as full of life as it probably should have been. It was a front, more than anything else. Even if Sin and Brock did occasionally use the house for their own personal time—it had been part of her deal with Pierce when she pitched the idea—it wasn’t really a home. 

At least, not until it had to be.

Sin found herself staring out a kitchen window at the scene on the patio. Most of the STRIKE unit was there with their partners—real or cover related, it was hard to tell if you didn’t already know—and there was plenty of laughter and fun going on. Brock was by the BBQ, arguing with Jack about how to cook the steaks.

She smiled. Part of her, whether it was real or part of what Pierce had put in her head, thought that maybe this was a nice way to spend a life away from work. The rest of her noted that this was work and she had to stay on target.

As if he had been summoned by that thought, her target entered the kitchen.

“Need any help in here?”

She turned to face him, a tray of cut up fruit in her hands. “Um, no? Not really.” She put on her best suburban housewife voice. Even if that wasn’t her cover, she figured it was the safest way to go. “Unless you want to carry some of this stuff outside for me? I think Brock is a little occupied with the meat at the moment.” She smiled as she glanced out the window.

Steve glanced out and chuckled softly. “Sure, I can do that.” He took another one of the platters and held the door open for her. She stepped through the door, setting the platter down on the table and grabbing a beer for herself and her helper.

She held the bottle out to him and he took it. “How are you liking Washington so far?” She asked as she took a sip of her drink. It would take more than a beer for her to get off her game, what with the serum in her system. She’d actually never been drunk in her life but she’d always been curious about it in an abstract way.

He nodded, obviously considering his answer as he took a sip of his own beer. “It’s okay. I haven’t been around much, honestly. Lots of work to do.”

“Yeah, I can imagine. Everybody seems to be busy these days.”

Steve seemed to study her for a moment, as if she’d let something slip that he couldn’t quite pin down. “It must be tough, never knowing what’s really going on.”

“You get used to it.” She shrugged. “My family has always been in the military.” It wasn’t a lie. Her mother, Zola, even her father had been connected to this kind of life.

He nodded again. “My dad was. My mom was a nurse so it’s still a crazy schedule. I guess I never really thought about it before.” 

“Life is what it is. Whatever you get used to is what normal is, right?” She smiled and grabbed a strawberry off the platter beside her. “The people around you matter more than the schedule.” She glanced over at Brock as his laugh filtered through the music and crowd on the patio and she couldn’t help but smile. This was the easiest cover she’d ever had to maintain.

Steve’s gaze followed hers and he smiled back at her. “He’s lucky.”

“Is he?” She was a little surprised by that comment. She’d thought through many different responses he could have given and that was not on the list. For the first time, she wondered if this was going to be as easy as she thought it would be. “Why would you say that?”

“He’s got you.” Steve shrugged and took another sip of his beer. “I mean, he’s got someone that cares about him, that he cares about. That’s important, I think.” He seemed a little awkward about it. “I think it’d be nice to have that, outside of the work we do.”

Ah ha. She nodded. “That makes sense. I don’t think luck really factors into it though. More… a willingness to put yourself out there.” She smiled and took her own sip. “If that’s what you want, anyway.”

“I do.” He said softly before glancing around like someone was going to catch him admitting that and lock him away somewhere. “I mean, I think I do.”

“Maybe don’t phrase it that way when you meet someone.” She smiled and shook her head. She was already putting together a list of people who might be willing to seduce the Captain for Hydra. It wasn’t a short list.

He laughed, just a little, and it was more than a little self-deprecating. “It’s hard to find somebody that gets it.”

“That’s true for literally everyone.” She shrugged. “Nobody is ever going to get everything.”

“I guess.” He looked at her and then over to Brock. “You two seem to be on the same wavelength, though.”

She laughed and shook her head. “Yeah, maybe.” Again, she found herself wishing that at least some of this cover was true, beyond just their relationship. She wasn’t sure how Rogers was getting her in her own head but it was annoying to say the least. “It’s harder to get what you want if you don’t know what you want.” She shrugged, turning the conversation back to him. “Not impossible, but definitely harder.”

She watched him carefully as he seemed to mull that over, taking a long drink from his beer bottle. “Guess I’ll have to give that some thought then.”

“It’s a good first step.”

He looked at her, a small smile crossing his face. With that smile, she was sure, it would be incredibly easy to find someone to take him out for a night or two. “Thanks, I guess I just needed a good kick in the ass.”

She smiled back, pushing him back toward the barbeque where Brock was starting to serve the steaks. “Any time. And Steve?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sure you’ll find someone soon.”

**2014, Sokovia**

The trip came at the perfect time. Since Pierce had put forth the idea of Project Insight, everyone seemed to be nervous. Both Zola and Brock had suggested she not be present for the launch, Brock insisting she be nowhere near the Eastern US until they were sure things weren’t going to go sideways.

She’d relented when a chance to build a bridge or two showed itself in Sokovia. She wasn’t working for Hydra or SHIELD for this. Zemo wouldn’t take any of that into consideration anyway, from what she knew of him.

They’d met many times over the years. His father and Zola had worked together and Helmut had made a name for himself with the Sokovian military. That he was even willing to talk to her was surprising. Since he’d married and had a son, he’d been far less inclined to work with anyone tied to Hydra.

She understood, of course. She didn’t like it, but she understood.

He’d shuffled Heike and their son out of the room after dinner and poured them both a glass of wine. “You must have a reason to come all this way, Schmidt.”

She smiled, and took a sip of the wine. “Of course I do. Not the least of which was to get out of Washington.”

“Is Pierce misbehaving?” He chuckled and took his own sip.

“Not yet, but it’s inevitable, isn’t it?” Sin shrugged, setting her glass down. “With Insight, it’s going to be difficult to control him.”

“Are you suggesting something be done about that?”

“Would I do that?”

“Absolutely.” He took another sip. “I have told you. I’m done with Hydra. I have a life here.”

“One that men like Pierce could destroy. You may be done with Hydra, but are you sure you’re not still on their radar?”

“How is what you want to do any different?”

“It’s not Hydra.”

“Blasphemy. What would the good doctor say to that?” He teased and took another sip. “What is your plan?”

She took another sip of her wine. “His men aren’t loyal to him. You know that.”

“And who does hold their loyalty?”

She smiled and shrugged again. “It would be easy to get rid of him. Quietly. Slip in and grab the reins while the world mourns.”

“I forgot how cold blooded you are.” He sighed and glanced toward the other room. “And what would you want from me in all this? It sounds like you have it all in line already.”

Before she managed to get the first words out, Heike was in the doorway, holding their son, who looked more than a little confused and upset. “Something has happened in Washington.” she said softly. “You will want to see this.” she shook her head and took the boy upstairs.

Sin looked at Helmut and got up, moving into the other room. Only his quick reflexes saved her glass of wine from hitting the floor.

She knew Zemo was talking, she had a vague idea that he was trying to get her to sit down, or acknowledge him but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the screen. The footage would win awards, that much was sure. If she had been thinking clearly, she might have enjoyed the sheer destruction the helicarriers were creating.

She dialed on autopilot, cursing as the other end of the line rang and rang. “Pick up… pick up…” she muttered into her phone. “Come on, baby…”

Every ring and redial made her tenser.

“Sinthea…”

She finally turned to face Zemo and put her phone down. “I need to get back to Washington.”

“That will be difficult.” He glanced back toward the stairs leading up to where his wife and child were. “I can get you to Philadelphia.”

“I can drive from there.” She nodded, trying not to think the worst. Trying not to picture that building coming down under the weight of the helicarrier. Trying not to think about where Brock might have been at that moment.

The flight was a blur. She was thankful that Zemo had thought ahead, pointing out that she might be on a no fly list, given that there was no way to know yet how much was leaked about her by SHIELD. It was easily avoided but she wasn’t sure the checkpoints outside Washington would be as easy. She had to stay low key, of course. Anything drawing attention now would only slow things down and there wasn’t any time to do that.

The traffic was backed up going into the city. That wasn’t surprising. Her phone ringing, however, made her jump. She didn’t think before she answered. She didn’t even look at the number. “Brock?”

“No, Sin, it’s me.”

She slumped, letting her rental car creep forward. Since they were kids, and Sin had brought her back to the states from Istanbul, they’d kept in touch. She’d become Annie Weber, adopted out to a trustworthy, stable family. A family with strong, albeit deeply buried, ties to Hydra. So, Yana became Annie and eventually Annie became a nurse at George Washington University hospital. She’d also been dating one of the guys in Brock’s unit.

Sin couldn’t stop herself from slipping into Russian. “What happened? Is he there?”

“They just brought him in. Sin…” the sigh on the other end of the line made her heart stop. “It’s… it’s bad. You need to get here quick.”

“And say what? I’m his girlfriend? They’ll arrest me too.”

“Volunteer. We need all the help we can get. You’ve done triage.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Just tell me what you’re planning.” It was shorthand for ‘don’t blow the hospital up when I’m working’.

“I will. I have to go. I’m getting close to the checkpoint.” She sighed. “Yana?”

“I’ll keep an eye on him.”

She hung up and had her papers ready for the military police at the checkpoint. “Why are you coming to Washington?”

She sighed heavily, figuring that Yana’s idea was a good one. At least it would make it easier to gain access to Brock. “I’m a nurse. I saw what happened on the news and I want to help.”

**Washington DC, 2014**

It took just over a week for Erica Becker to get assigned to the burn unit. The security on the floor was high, the nurses were nervous but she showed them that she didn’t scare easy and, to her, the job was more important than anything else.

That got her a special assignment. The head of whatever branch of military security talked to her personally, explaining what the problem was and why the nurses were so nervous.

It took all her training not to smile when he walked her into Brock’s room himself.

She reached for the chart and her heart sank. The military guy was talking about safety and threats but she wasn’t really paying attention. She looked him over and frowned. “Why is he cuffed?”

“For all the reasons I just gave you.”

“Colonel,” she stated calmly, “he hasn’t woken up since his first round of surgeries. Half his bones are broken, he’s barely breathing. Even if he does wake up,” she hated saying if but it seemed a safer way to argue her point, “he isn’t going to be able to move on his own. Those cuffs seem a little paranoid.”

“It won’t when he wakes up.”

“Take them off, please. I accept the risk.” She went back to the chart.

“I don’t think so.”

“They will interfere with care, whether you like it or not. He’s not going anywhere for a good long time, Colonel.” He didn’t move but it looked like he was thinking about it. She signed, making her tone a little less confrontational when she spoke again. “I took an oath to do no harm, Colonel. Can you help me keep it, please?”

“Fine, but the guards stay in the room.”

“No, they don’t. They can wait outside. This man still has a right to privacy in his medical care.”

He grumbled but eventually he nodded, motioning one of the guards to do as she said.

“Thank you.”

“You better be right about this, Ms. Becker.”

She smiled sweetly, looking as innocent and helpful as possible. “Trust me, Colonel. He won’t hurt me.” She checked the IV bags and dosages on the chart when she noticed something off. “Colonel?”

“What?”

“Was there a doctor in here recently?”

“No.”

“Who changed the dose on this IV then?” She watched him carefully, fighting the urge to pin him to the wall with the IV pole.

“We thought it best to keep him… sedated.”

“I see.” She fixed the dose and walked back toward the Colonel. “And I think that if I come in here and see that again, I will report you and your men to your superiors and the hospital administration.”

“That isn’t your call, Ms. Becker.”

“Where did you get your medical degree, Colonel?” He flinched under her glare. She pulled it back just a little. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Now, get out.”

She waited for them to leave the room before drawing the curtains and stepping closer to the bed. The façade dropped, just a little, as she checked his dressings. She looked down at him, taking in the bandages, and the casts. “Oh, baby, what did they do to you?”

She did the things she needed to do to keep him comfortable, talking softly to him as she did. She remembered reading somewhere about familiar voices when someone was unconscious. She wasn’t sure it was accurate but she felt like maybe it would help. Or at least it couldn’t hurt. She finished up, dragging it out as long as she could. “I’m going to get you out of here. It’s just going to take some time.”

She sighed, waiting a few more moments before she reached for the curtain and left the room. She nodded to the guards and their boss and headed back to the nurse’s station.

It went that way for days, including the argument about the hand cuffs. She may or may not have called the Colonel and his men cowards in the nicest way she could stomach before getting back to work. Her patience was wearing thin and her temper was ever worse. She couldn’t blow her cover but god, she wanted to.

“Now would be a good time to wake up, babe.” She sighed as she drew blood for more tests that the doctors wanted to run.

It wasn’t so much a word as a noise as she slipped the needle into his vein. She swallowed hard, finishing what she was doing before looking at his face again.

He blinked up at her, obviously confused and, despite the massive doses of drugs they were pumping into him, in a lot of pain. “Sin?” his voice sounded so rough it was barely recognizable.

“Brock, oh god…” she smiled, her fingers running through his hair. “I’ll get you out of here, babe. Soon. I promise.”

He nodded but winced, his eyes closing again.

She packed up her kit and hurried out into the hallway. She spotted one of the guards and called out to him. “Get the doctor!”

“Why?”

“Because he’s awake.”

**Washington DC, 2014**

Months of planning had gone into this. Placement, and favors called in and, making sure that the Hydra personnel that were still within the government didn’t get caught. Or at least didn’t get caught until she was done with them. She might throw them to the wolves once they’d outlived their usefulness. All of it had to line up just right for her plan to work.

She had to give them credit, though. The operation was well planned and very secure. If she hadn’t been Brock’s primary nurse for the last few months, she’d probably have no idea what was going on.

But she had been. And she did. 

Her favorite Colonel had begrudgingly allowed her to be added to the roster of people that would be in the helicopter. One of the doctors had said it would be necessary to have some medical personnel there, just in case. Sin hadn’t volunteered but Annie had.

“There’s nothing left for me here. I might as well do some good before I disappear.” She’d told Sin later. “I think it’s time that I stop pretending who I am.”

Sin was fairly sure that Annie would once again be Yana by the time they touched down in Maine.

That would be the first leg of the flight. Going north and then moving from there to a safe base, so long as the military hadn’t found it yet. There would be a med team waiting there, or so Zola had told her. She hated that she had to rely on his freedom online to get some of this done but whatever worked, she would do it.

With the pilot and another nurse on her side, however, things were looking up. The medical team in Maine was in place. Everything was in place and it was time to move. They pushed the stretcher through the halls of the hospital under the watchful eye of the Colonel’s best men. Yana stayed near the stretcher, and Sin stayed near the Colonel. Once they reached the roof where the helicopter was waiting, the two women let the soldiers load Brock into the helicopter.

None of them expected what happened and probably regretted not thinking it through for the split second they could before they died. Both of them had always been excellent markswomen, after all. That left the Colonel, standing there in shock. 

“You’re one of them.”

“No shit.” She laughed, holding his own gun on him. “You would have been too low on the food chain before to warrant doing anything about you, but now?” She fired the gun into his kneecap. “After everything that has happened, you have earned a more personal touch, Colonel. Now, you may think I’m the bad guy here.” She shot his other kneecap. “But I’m not the one trying to OD a man in a coma.”

“You won’t get away with this.”

“I already have.” She fired again, this time hitting him right between the eyes. She tossed the gun aside and pulled herself up onto the helicopter.

“That was incredibly satisfying.” Yana smiled at her as she settled in.

“Oh, it was.”

**Madripoor, 2014**

It was hot and sweaty. Part of her wanted to go back to Azerbaijan to keep an eye on things and not melt in the street.

But she’d spent a month tracking her current target, learning his patterns, his security, his likes and dislikes. Frankly, he seemed very sure of his abilities and he was willing to turn people away if they didn’t meet his standards. 

She had no intention of being turned away.

Hightown wasn’t usually so obvious about its criminal activities. Or at least, they put on a better front than the criminals in Lowtown but Radcliffe had practically hung out a shingle reading ‘cybernetics and enhancements for sale’.

Most of her information had come from an old Hydra acquaintance. One of Strucker’s pet projects before he cut her loose and she started taking over Madripoor. But the intel was good and the club that she had been pointed toward was easy enough to get into, especially since she wasn’t just some ordinary human.

The problem was, it was harder to tell with her than with the guy ahead of her in line with the robot fingers sticking out of his suit jacket.

Robot fingers looked significantly pissed off when he—and his apparently low grade prosthetic—was turned away at the door. Sin raised an eyebrow and watched him walk away before stepping forward. “I want to see Dr. Radcliffe. It’s important.”

The guard looked her over, obviously using more than just regular human eyes to do so. “You’re flatscan.”

“No, I’m not.”

He shook his head and took a bite of his apple. “No.”

She didn’t hesitate, reaching out and grabbing the apple before squeezing it hard enough for bits to fly in the man’s face. “I don’t think you understood. I want to see Dr. Radcliffe and if I have to go directly through your miserable, half-assed enhanced body to do it, I will.”

He wiped apple off his face and opened the door for her. “Head to the back. It’s the door with a couple big guys on it.” 

She walked in, spotting the door in question but heading to the bar to grab a drink and wipe the juice off her hand. No need to go into a meeting sticky, after all.

One of the guards from the door approached her and grabbed her wrist. “Causing trouble?”

“Always.” She smiled and let him put the very solid handcuffs on her. If they wanted to feel like big men, she’d let them, for the time being. “You want to tell me where we’re going?”

“You’ll figure it out.” The second guard answered as he appeared on her right and the two men led her to a back room.

She nearly smiled. Now they were getting somewhere.

“The young man out front says you’re a meta human.” The Scottish accent filled the room a moment after she was through the door.

Sin smiled, wrapping her hands around the bar between her wrists and twisting. It snapped a moment later and she rolled her shoulders and looked at the guards. “Nice try, boys.” She turned back toward the voice in the shadows. “I need your help.”

“A lot of people come here looking for help.”

“I’m not them and I have a few things to offer than you might actually find interesting.” She held her wrists out. “Do you mind?”

He motioned the still-stunned guard forward to unlock the broken cuffs. She let them fall to the floor with a heavy thud, further proving her strength. “What are you offering?”

“What do you want?” She smiled sweetly. “A meeting with someone who has achieved what you chase.”

“And what do you think I’m chasing?”

“Immortality.” She shrugged. “The cyber kind.”

For a moment, his eyes went wide. “There have been rumors, but I thought they were ridiculous. No one could achieve that in complete secrecy.” He considered what she was saying for a moment before looking her over again. “That doesn’t explain how you got the way you are.”

“I inherited my abilities from my father.”

“That kind of strength, your father would have to be Captain America—”

“No, he wouldn’t.”

His eyes went wide again. “How is that possible? You can’t be more than 25.”

“I am a little more than that but you are a geneticist. I’m sure you can figure it out.” She watched him putting the pieces together and smiled. “You’ve heard the rumors, and I come here offering to introduce you to an immortal.”

The light went on as everything snapped into place. “Arnim Zola. But that was in the 70s.”

“SHIELD was useful, for a while. Now I’m trying to fix some of their mistakes and messes.”

“If you have a super soldier serum in you then that would make your father—”

“Bingo. Welcome to the party, doctor.” She held her hand out, taking pity on him for a moment. “Sinthea Schmidt.”

He shook her hand absently, looking for any sign of… something. She couldn’t exactly figure out what he thought he’d see in her hand. “Holden Radcliffe.”

“Now that we’ve gotten past all that,” she smiled as nicely as she could but she was fairly certain he was still terrified of her. “I want to hear about your work on the life model decoy projects for SHIELD.”

He shrugged. “It was promising. But the funding wasn’t there.”

“Would you like to continue that work? Along with some work in cellular regeneration?”

“Who’s paying your bills?”

“All the assholes that cut your funding. Posthumously, of course.”

“What kind of regeneration are you looking for? Like what you or the Captain are capable of?”

“Not in the long term, though your patient would likely appreciate that.”

“What are we looking at?”

Sin sighed and handed him a file from her bag. She’d been over it enough times to recite it from memory, but she let him read it instead of explaining.

“I think I can help, but it is a lot of work.”

“Yeah, I know that.” She stood a little taller. “What will you need?”

“In payment? I would like to speak to Dr. Zola. And,” he smiled, “access to your blood. In fact, that might help quite a bit with what you’re asking here. Gene therapy and all that.” He was clearly running numbers in his head.

“Done. When can you start?”

**Azerbaijan, 2014**

She stared at the face for a long time. It felt like it’d been forever since she’d seen him like this. Right down to the stubble on his chin, it was perfect.

“This won’t work.”

“Why not? It’s perfect.” Radcliffe looked more than a little frustrated.

“That’s the problem, Doctor.” Sin sighed, still not pulling her eyes away from the face she’d fallen in love with. “They dropped a building on him. You’ve seen what that did to him. You’ve treated him.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Do you think that Captain America and his super-friends are going to believe that he walked away from that with not a hair out of place?”

Radcliffe sighed heavily, but finally relented. “You know when I’m done, none of this will be necessary.”

“We’ll see.” She finally stepped back from the LMD and turned to leave the room. “How are things going?”

“The damage was extensive. Doing what you asked is going to take time. Even with the samples you have donated.” He glanced at the LMD. “We could, with Dr. Zola’s help, just uplo—”

“No.”

“May I ask why?”

“Do you want the truth or some bullshit ethical argument?”

“The truth.”

“I don’t want to fuck a robot.”

Radcliffe sputtered for a moment, obviously regretting taking a sip of his coffee before asking such a question. “Well, alright then. But then what are you going to use this for?”

“It’s a distraction, Doctor. Something for Captain America to chase while your patient rests.” She glanced at the door. “They’re looking for us. Why wouldn’t they be? So, we need something to send them to every other location on earth. Anywhere but here. And if it can do some good work while it’s out there, all the better.”

He nodded, looking the LMD over again. “He could… be rigged with a failsafe? A self-destruct mechanism, if it looks like he will be captured. But--”

“Good, do it.”

“I don’t know what the reaction will be if he is hooked up to the LMD at the time.”

“Understood. Fine tune the system as much as you can so that we can disconnect if it comes to that.” She sighed heavily and left, moving through the halls of the facility slowly and turning over the work that Radcliffe had done in just a few months.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket and she pulled it out. “Yes?”

“You know that you’d barely be able to tell the difference between the LMD and the human version if you hadn’t seen it being built.”

“I am not having this conversation with you, Arnim.”

“The point of the Life Model Decoys was the make them undetectable. What better test of that?”

“Not. Having. This. Conversation.” She shook her head, muted her phone and stuffed it back in her pocket.

It didn’t take long to get where she was going. She knocked before going into the room. She wasn’t sure how long he’d been resting and she didn’t want to cut into that, but with everything going on, she wanted to be close. Just for a couple minutes at least.

Apparently, he was tired of resting. “Hey.”

“Hey.” She sat down next to his bed and gave him a little smile. “How’s it going?”

He shrugged, just a little but it was more movement than there’d been a week earlier. “Remember all that order through pain crap?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s bullshit, and it sucks.” He let his eyes close for a moment before turning his head to look at her. “Something’s bugging you.”

“Radcliffe and Zola want to get you in a robot body.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. I uh… I told Radcliffe I didn’t want to fuck a robot.” She laughed and shook her head. “But it’s not really my call, I guess.”

“Well, if you’re not going to fuck me anymore, I don’t think it’s such a hot idea either.” He chuckled softly. “We’ll get through this.”

“Hey, you’re the one doing all the heavy work here.”

“Just like always, huh?”

“If you’re teasing me, you must be feeling a little better.” She relaxed a little and gently ran her fingers over his hand. “Did he explain how that thing is going to work?” 

“Yeah, they hook something up to my brain, I go to sleep and it goes out and causes some damage.”

“Pretty much.”

“Just that simple, right?”

“Yeah, babe.” She smiled, leaning in to kiss his lips. “Just that simple.”

**2017**

The LMD worked perfectly, over and over again. But she never stopped being paranoid about it. This time hadn’t been any different. He’d kissed her softly, saying again that he could have gone out himself this time. He was mostly healed thanks to Dr. Radcliffe’s creativity. Even the scars were faded, as if the injuries had happened a decade ago. His strength was coming back and he spent more time in the gym than in bed. Maybe he was ready. Maybe not.

Either way, she’d nixed that idea pretty fast. “I just got you back. I don’t want you going out there and doing something stupid.”

The words were almost prophetic.

She never remembered how she got across the room as fast as she did. If Radcliffe had still needed proof she was a super soldier, he would have had it in that moment. She took the scene in quickly. She was used to stress but her voice came out almost shrill. “Shut it down! Now!”

She glanced at the monitor and saw nothing. The LMD had detonated. She hoped it took at least a few Avengers with it. And it wouldn’t take Brock.

“System disconnected.”

But he hadn’t stopped seizing. She held his head, keeping it stable , while the rest of his body shook. “Come on, baby. You can get through this.” She kept her fingers moving through his hair. “Come back, babe.”

She was well aware of the chaos around them but if she just focused enough, she was sure she could talk him through this. It felt like someone had turned the sound down on the rest of the room and hit the fast forward button. But she had to focus. It wasn’t the time to question why the failsafe that Radcliffe and Zola had assured her would prevent this didn’t activate soon enough. It wasn’t the time to rip Radcliffe’s throat out. That might come later.

It felt like forever. It felt like he’d never stop shaking but his body relaxed finally and she set his head back on the pillow.

“What. The. Fuck?” Sin’s eyes flashed and she crossed the room, grabbing Radcliffe by the throat. “You said that wouldn’t happen. You gave me your word.”

“Sinthea, calm down.” Zola’s voice filled the room but she turned on the screen he was currently inhabiting.

“I will not calm down. You always want me to learn from my father’s example. What would my father do right now if you failed so miserably?” She growled.

“He would have killed me where I stood, but you, my dear, do not have that luxury.”

She didn’t think about it. She reacted, more than anything else. She drew her sidearm and fired at the screen. Sure, it didn’t kill him but it was satisfying nonetheless. “We will no longer be requiring your services, Doctor.”

Radcliffe didn’t hesitate, running from the room, no doubt to collect his research and his samples. He was welcome to them, as far as she was concerned. She took a deep breath, holstered her weapon and stepped back toward Brock. “How is he?”

“Everything seems to check out so far.” A nervous looking nurse was looking at the monitors that he was hooked up to. “He will likely be tired, disoriented, but he should be fine.”

She nodded, sitting down next to the bed. It would likely be awhile before he woke up. When her phone rang, she jumped. “What?”

“Did I call at a bad time?”

“I’m not in the mood for smug, Helmut. What do you want?”

“I have a few things that you might find interesting. And I saw your boyfriend on TV. How is he?”

“Sleeping. I’m never trusting technology again.”

“That’s probably for the best.” She could almost hear the smirk on the other end of the line. “Did you know Bucky Barnes killed your mother?”

“What?”

“Mm. I’m looking at the files about it that SHIELD leaked. It’s rather dull but there are some nuggets in here.”

“Why would you tell me this?”

“Because I have an idea and I might not be able to pull it off entirely alone.”

She thought about it for a moment. Zemo had never been the fly-off-the-handle type but after what had happened in Sokovia, she wasn’t sure he was as clear headed about things as he sounded. Nonetheless, she sighed and sat back. “Okay, what do you have in mind?”

**2017**

Tearing apart the Avengers was an ambitious thing to attempt. There would be risks and likely sacrifices to be made to get it done. Luckily, Zemo took the brunt of the sacrifices. She wasn’t thrilled that he hadn’t set the Russian super soldiers loose on the world but the small victory of watching the Avengers tear each other to pieces was worth it.

She knew they wouldn’t be completely contained. She would still run into them now and then, and they would still get in the way. But at that moment, she wasn’t their biggest problem.

It was almost insulting.

She had to hand it to Zemo, though. He was committed to his revenge. He’d done beautiful work. Framing Barnes—which, now that she knew he was responsible for her mother’s death, was even sweeter while it lasted--turning the Avengers against each other in public. It was a masterpiece.

She was almost upset that she hadn’t thought of it herself, but she’d always been more of a hands-on destruction type.

Brock had suggested leaving him in there, just until things settled down and she was inclined to agree. Bursting into the CIA’s bunker wouldn’t be the wisest choice at the moment. That left her with more time to think over their next move.

“I can almost hear the wheels spinning.” Brock smirked down at her as she turned over idea after idea in bed with him. 

She looked up at him, pulled out of her thoughts. “What? Oh…” she shook her head and sighed. “Just wishing Zemo hadn’t killed those soldiers.”

“Think you could have controlled them?”

“No, but I think I could have pointed them in the right directions.” She let out a long breath and rested her head back on his chest. “It might not be such a bad idea to check out some of those old, remote bases. See what else was being saved for a rainy day.”

**South East of the Jana River, Russia, 2018**

The base was quiet. Slowly being taken over by the nature around it and freezing cold. It was perfect for preservation of what she was looking for but she had to admit, she wasn’t planning on staying long.

The case files for the red room students that had made it out of the USSR after the collapse of the Soviet Union had been hidden away. Protection for the girls seemed a good idea, even if the new government wanted to wash their hands of the programs. They still wanted to track the girls, just in case.

And they were still here. Frozen, but intact. Yana had tipped her off, saying that everything she needed to recruit was there. Even the notorious Black Widow’s information was included. What they could get of it anyway. It was a gold mine.

There were, on top of that, vaults of blueprints and specs for weapons designed by less than moral soviet scientists, prototypes and raw materials anyone could need. She’d already put the best of those into the helicopter and was heading back to the pad with her arms full of Red Room files when she heard something behind her. “God damn it…”

She set the files down on a desk and turned to see the aforementioned Black Widow. “Who are you?”

“An old friend from SHIELD.” She grinned, spinning out and kicking the other woman’s knee out. This wasn’t the time to kick her ass. She made her way to the helipad, followed by the Avenger. It turned out, the Black Widow didn’t work alone. 

She recognized the agent standing between her and the helicopter and she cursed softly. “Ganging up on me? I thought you good guys were all about fairness.” She dodged Carter’s punch and hit her in the kidney.

Sin spun, just in time for the Widow to connect but the punch only sent her back a few steps and closer to the helicopter. Her foot connected with Carter’s chest, sending her back against the helicopter and knocking the wind of out her. That let Sin focus on the Widow. 

“I always heard you were the best.” Sin shook her head a little as she dodged another kick. “But you abandoned those girls when it all went to shit, didn’t you?”

“How would you know anything about that?"

“Because I’m the one that bailed a lot of them out.” It was the opening she needed. “You failed those little girls. You took care of yourself. Not them. And you call yourself a hero.”

That was enough for Sin to get close enough to throw the other woman off the platform and focus back in on the agent who was getting back on her feet. “Carter, right?”

“That’s right.” She got up and swung at Sin, but the serum once again gave Sin the upper hand.

She spun the other woman around and pinned her against the chopper. “How’s it feel to know your aunt’s legacy was filthy all along?” She grinned. “You know she opened the door to Zola. Stark did too.”

“You’re Hydra.” She pushed back, kicking Sin off her. “Figures.”

“Does it? You think you were the only legacy within SHIELD?” She laughed climbing into the helicopter. “For secret agents, you were all shockingly stupid.”

She took off, hearing the bullets clink off the helicopter as she climbed. She scanned radio frequencies, listening for their ride or back up before tuning into the base they’d set up outside of Sokol. She landed a few hours later and let the scientists at the blueprints and prototypes. Brock was waiting for her. “Busy day at the office?” He smirked as she moved in close, pulling him into a deep kiss.

“Got into a fight.” She shrugged, kissing him again. “Help me burn off some extra energy.”

“Gladly. You want to spar or should I just fuck you?”

“Both.”

“Who’d you run into?” H e raised an eyebrow at her. 

“Romanoff and Carter.”

The eyebrow crept up further. “Don’t take this the wrong way, babe, but I kinda wish I’d gotten to watch that.”

“Just for that, we’re sparring first.”

**Belgrade, 2019**

“You cannot stop now.”

Sin sighed and rubbed her temple. “I’m not stopping. I’m letting your scientists work with what they have for a few weeks while we lay low and hope the Serbian national guard doesn’t find your base here. There’s a difference.”

She once again found herself questioning why she continued to work with Zola. He rarely wanted to admit that when the danger closed it, he could get away as easily as flicking a switch but it wasn’t that simple for the rest of them. “Do you think your enemies do this?”

“Well nobody’s seen Rogers in a while so he’s clearly better at hiding than you are.” She frowned at the screen. “Chances are he’ll be well rested, bright eyed and bushy tailed the next time he shows up.”

“I doubt he is napping.”

“Probably not. But he’s not running around the globe running errands for you either. What happened to all that patience you had? 70 years within SHIELD without a peep and now you can’t sit still for a couple weeks?”

“We have the upper hand—”

“We won’t if we keep this up.” She crossed her arms. Their men were on watch lists and most wanted lists all over the globe. She and Brock had been spotted a few times, which didn’t bode well for keeping off the Avengers radar. Either the official ones under the UN or the renegade ones.

“We’ll all end up in prison. And you’ll get stuck in a surge protector. We need to lay low. Be defensive for a few weeks. Then we’ll hit them again.” She sighed and rubbed at her temple. “Just trust my judgement for once.”

“I do trust your judgement. I don’t trust your libido.”

“How many times do the words ‘I’m not having this conversation with you, Arnim’ have to leave my lips for you to take a hint?”

“I have told you through your entire life not to trust anyone, and not to put anything above your work.”

“And I haven’t. If you want to make a stupid tactical mistake, do it on your own. I won’t put what I’ve built at risk because you have a e-boner for what SHIELD, Hydra and the Red Room tried to do.” She snapped. She was willing to admit that. But that didn’t mean she was wrong. “Don’t act like it’s about me getting laid.”

The bluntness apparently caught him off guard and he was silent for a moment while he considered her words. “Two weeks.”

“Six.”

“Three.”

She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Four.”

He frowned from the screen. “Fine. You have a month. I hope we do not regret this.”

“The world will still be here in a month, Arnim.” She shrugged and left the room, ready to go back to New York and enjoy some peace and quiet.

**New York City, 2019**

Things felt shockingly normal in New York. Maybe it was just them. She was more than willing to admit that having time and space to just be made everything feel a little less chaotic or dangerous. And while she liked the danger, it was nice to have a break from it.

The tiny apartment—just big enough for the two of them—was rented under fake names, of course. She’d even taken to wearing a simple gold band on her finger to keep up the pretense of them being Nick and Ally Giehl, normal married couple. It felt nice. Like it had been before Insight, without the pressure of trying to convince Rogers that everything was normal.

And sure, she was still working. They both were. There will still trips to Siberia, Ukraine, Bosnia, Iran… any place that Hydra or the Red Room had left something interesting. And they’d collected a lot of information and a few temperamental gadgets that Zola had been playing around with.

Yes, they occasionally had to deal with heroes pretending they cared what happened to whoever was unlucky enough to be in the line of fire. Hypocrisy, as far as she was concerned. They hadn’t cared what happened to her when she was a child. They hadn’t cared when their heroic work brought down buildings or countries. They only cared when they weren’t the ones causing the chaos, or the chaos didn’t fit with their plans.

But, despite its disproportionate hero population, New York felt like a sanctuary.

The quiet mornings were the best part, as far as she was concerned. Waking up late, curled up with Brock. The only wake-up call worth getting was him kissing her neck as the sunlight came through the window.

“You’re up early.” She purred softly as he rolled her onto her back and kissed her deeply.

“Got a good reason to get up.” He smirked, his lips moving slowly over her neck. She wrapped herself around him, fingers carding through his hair as he moved down her body. It was so easy, so comfortable. Before the fall of SHIELD, most times they’d have to rush through all this.

The freedom to just enjoy each other was still fresh. The faded scars on his body that her fingers traced were a reminder not to take any time they had for granted. She moaned as his lips brushed the inside of her thigh, his stubble rough against her skin.

She lost track of time, losing count of how many times he made her come before he kissed a path back up her body. She kissed his lips deeply as he slid into her. The slow pace made it impossible to ignore any sensation he sent through her body. Over and over again, she breathed his name as his pace increased and finally they came together.

She looked up at him as she rested her head on his chest. “How’d we get so lucky?”

“You think we’re lucky?” He chuckled, pulling her closer. “After everything we did and everything that’s happened?”

“But we’re still here.” She shrugged and grinned up at him. “That’s pretty damn lucky.”

“No, that’s all you, babe. You put in the work. You pulled me back so many times. I wouldn’t be here without you.”

“It’s too early in the morning for all that to sink in.” She murmured against his chest with a small laugh. “But I love you too.”

He kissed the top of her head and the peace of the room seemed to wrap around them. She was sure they didn’t deserve that moment but she wasn’t about to break it.

The thing was, she also knew they never got a say in whether or not those moments got to last.

“Sin…”

His voice sounded off. She lifted her head and watched him. “Brock? What is it?”

He didn’t seem to know what was going on any more than she did, but something was very clearly wrong. Her eyes went wide as his body seemed to fall away under her touch. “Sin, I—” he didn’t get a chance to finish whatever he was going to say as whatever was causing this finally consumed him and she found her hand on the mattress, over a pile of dust.

She sat back, staring wide eyed at the spot Brock had been a moment before. “No… no…” she couldn’t think, frantically trying to collect the dust as he slipped through her fingers. “NO!” She couldn’t stop the primal scream that left her as she tried to hold him together.

It took a long time to realize, she wasn’t the only one screaming.

**New York City, 2020**

She was willing to admit that she’d spiraled. She’d fallen apart violently. Nick Giehl was listed on the memorial in Central Park as one of the Vanished. One of the ones the Avengers couldn’t protect. One of the victims of Thanos.

She’d stood in front of that memorial for hours. She hated that, in that moment, in his death, she couldn’t have remembered him as himself. It felt like a betrayal, even though there was no safe way to tell the people collecting names that he was actually a terrorist that everyone thought had died years ago. Not without telling them she probably should be in jail too.

He wouldn’t want her turning herself in. She knew that much. So, Nick Giehl was memorialized instead of Brock Rumlow, and she hated everything about that. She’d carved his initials under the name in a vain attempt to do something real for him. It never felt like enough.

She hated the people who had failed the world. She’d hated them before but now, she had nothing to connect her anymore. She worked instead. Collecting intel and tech from the wilderness of abandoned bases that had become wilder and wilder since the snap. She’d reached out to a few former acquaintances. Most of them were dead or in the same boat she was, struggling for something to fight for.

Once she figured out that, because of the serum, there wouldn’t be any way to numb any of the feelings she had on the subject, she began taking it out on anyone who crossed her.

And she wasn’t the only one. She thought about reaching out to some of the vigilantes that were running around the globe but she figured she’d be a target more than an ally to most of them.

Occasionally Zola would appear with news or a tip on something that needed doing, but it was always more of a suggestion than an order. Something had shifted inside her and even Zola could see she’d become more like her father in the fallout. She was colder, harsher, even more willing to pull the trigger. “I hadn’t considered that he kept you balanced.” Zola had said once, a few months after the snap.

“Then you weren’t really looking.” She snapped back.

“I suppose not.” Zola had continued on about one thing or another. Even in doing his work for him, she managed to keep a shockingly low profile. She’d run into the occasional agent or government stooge but a face to face with any of the remaining Avengers seemed out of reach.

Until one walked up to her in the middle of the memorial. Steve Rogers never knew when to back off, that much was clear.

“You lost someone?”

She actually stared at him, mouth hanging open as she did. How could he be so stupid? “No shit.” She ground the words out through gritted teeth as she set a rose on the memorial stone. “What was your first clue?”

“I haven’t seen you in a long time.”

“You think that was by accident?” She nearly spat the words at him like venom. “What do you want?”

“Who was it?”

“How is that any of your business?” She shook her head and looked at the fake name again. “Besides, you know who I lost.”

“That’s…” the lines that appeared between his eyes gave away that he hadn’t considered that. “That’s not possible.”

“Nothing’s impossible, Captain.” She growled. She barely controlled the urge to pull the gun at her side on him and start firing. “You never really figured it out, did you? You really thought I was some suburban housewife? That he was lying to me or something?” She let out a dark laugh. “You’re a fucking idiot.”

“You were Hydra?”

“Hydra should have been mine. Pierce tried to take it away and failed. But you…” She narrowed her eyes on him. “You took everything from me.”

“I was trying to protect people.”

“Well, way to go, Cap. You protected us all straight into hell.” She shook her head. “You were there, weren’t you? You’re always there.” She muttered angrily. “Let me guess, you saw your friends die on their feet? In the fight?”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t.” Her voice was low, angry as she stepped toward him. “I watched the one person I ever gave a shit about disintegrate and slip through my fingers.” She stepped into his space. “I don’t know how long I sat there, trying to put him back together because I couldn’t accept what I was looking at. But please, tell me how we all lost so fucking much.” She poked her finger into his chest harder than he likely expected her to be capable of. “Tell me how you fucking  _ tried _ .”

He backed away from her a little. “I know some people lost more than others. I know it was probably more traumatic for some than others too.”

“Do you?” Her voice cracked and she hated herself for it. “Maybe you do. But you sure as hell don’t seem to give a shit.”

“I get it. You’re hurting, you’re lashing out—”

“No, Captain. If I was lashing out, there’d be a crater where you’re standing.” She growled and pulled her gun. “I think that would be a fitting tribute. He’d love that.”

His eyes went wide, as if he’d finally realized that she wasn’t just some good Hydra follower. That maybe she’d been the threat, all along. “You want to take out the memorial? The one place you can bring those?” He motioned to the flower she’d left on the pillar a few feet away.

“Don’t know your history, do you? Blood offerings were always more powerful.” She glared at him and cocked the gun.

He grabbed her wrist, tossing the gun to the ground. She used the momentum to free her hand and pull a knife. The speed of her movements seemed to shock him more than anything else. “How—”

“Serums are funny things.” She lunged at him, brandishing the knife. She could hear people yelling and running but she was well past the point where causing a scene mattered. “A gift from my father.”

“Your—” Steve dodged her attacks but just barely. “Who was your father? He experimented on you?”

“I inherited the serum.” She grinned and slashed at his arm, drawing blood but not enough.

His eyes went wide again and he paused, but he was out of reach when he did. He was learning. “Schmidt.”

“Took you long enough.” She slashed at him again. “With a little help from Dr. Zola.” She pushed forward, driving him back. “I am faster, stronger and better than my father.”

“That’s a pretty low bar.”

“Then why aren’t you putting me down?” She smirked and dodged as he grabbed for her arm again. “Too noble to hit a woman?”

He shook his head, but didn’t take his eyes off her. “You’re hurting. I get it.”

“You don’t get shit!” She thrust the knife forward, digging it into his shoulder. She couldn’t be sure if she hit him more than once. The world seemed like a red blur around her, even as she hit the ground when he finally hit her. She knew he hadn’t used all his power against her. That was a mistake. She rolled with the punch and got up. “That all you got?”

“I’m not going to do this here. These people deserve respect.”

“You killed them. Your failure is why this place is here.” She narrowed her eyes on him again. “Your respect means nothing.”

‘You need to stop. You have a chance at another life here. Take it.” He started walking away, and the shock of his words held her in place.

“I’m never going to stop!” She yelled after him. “You’ll regret not killing me here!”

“Yeah, maybe.” He held his hand to the wound in his shoulder and made his way out of the memorial park.

**New York City, 2024**

The cup in her hand hit the pavement as she tried to process what she was seeing. A wind strong enough to make her blink rushed past her and people formed in front of her. Like dust in a tornado, spinning and forming and suddenly there was a person in front of her. Several people. As she looked down the street, all she saw were these little twists of wind forming into people.

“What happened?”

“I thought I passed out?”

“What do you mean it’s 2024?”

Her jaw dropped as she listened to the people around her trying to make sense of everything. Three people, newly formed—no, newly re-formed—had been the vanished. Her heart stopped and before she could completely process that thought, she bolted toward the apartment. Even as she heard snippets of conversation, she didn’t want to hope for too much. Would it be too much to ask? Maybe. She knew either way, that if he wasn’t there when she got there, she wouldn’t be able to deal with the loss all over again. 

She nearly dropped her keys and she tried to get into the building. Her hands shook and she bolted up the stairs, ignoring the confusion and questions from the other people in the building who had either just appeared or seen their family and friends appear. She nearly broke the door down as she got into the apartment.

“Brock?”

He came out of the bedroom, pulling a pair of pants on and he stopped, staring at her for a moment before she threw herself into his arms.

“Sin? What the hell is going on?” He held her close as she wrapped herself around him. “Babe?”

“I… it’s been so long…” she shook her head a little, trying to get herself together enough to explain what happened. “You… you just fell apart. I couldn’t stop it. I tried.” She held on tighter, trying to prove to herself that he was real and there.

He held her, his fingers in her hair for a moment before he spoke. “How long?”

She sighed, knowing that the details and the changes around him would be enough for him to believe her. Her hair was different. She’d rearranged some of the furniture in the apartment. Bought new sheets. She wouldn’t blame him if he got angry about it. She was angry about the wasted time they hadn’t gotten together. “Five years.”

“Son of a bitch.” His words came out quietly but she could feel the tension in him. “What the fuck happened?”

She slowly let go of him, setting her feet back on the floor. She had to stay close but she managed to pull out of her phone and pull up the news conference that the remaining Avengers had after Thanos erased half the world’s population.

“Arrogant fucking prick.” He tossed the phone down onto the couch and reached out for her again. She wrapped her arms around him. “Five years… what have you been doing?”

“Working.” She shrugged, not lifting her head from his chest. The feel of his heartbeat against her ear made her feel safe. Something she hadn’t felt in five years. “After I got it through my thick head that drinking wasn’t going to make any of it go away…”

“Yeah, guess you can thank your old man for that one.”

“Yeah. But I just… sort of lashed out. I didn’t care what I tore down, just that it all burned.” She sighed, a small smile crossing her face. “But I stabbed Rogers… too bad I wasn’t in the best state of mind. I should have aimed better. Only got him in the shoulder.”

“That’s my girl.” He chuckled, pulling her back into the bedroom. “I’m sorry, babe. I should have been here.”

“It’s not your fault.” She pressed close again, kissing him softly. Before anything else could happen, the sound of screaming and snarling came through the window. They both went to look down into the street.

The things they were looking down on were hard to comprehend. They were all mouth and slime and clearly ready to eat people. “Ammo’s still where it was when I disappeared, right?”

“Yeah. Got a few new toys too.”

“Fantastic, let’s go test them out on some aliens.”

“They’re probably Thanos’ troops.”

“Even better.” He kissed her deeply. “Wanna take some feelings out on them?”

She smiled, nodding as she handed him some ammunition. “Absolutely.”

**2024—epilogue**

The noise and movement would have been too much to comprehend if he wasn’t used to war zones and superheroes beating the hell out of each other. Sam could see through the chaos and not for the first time, he was glad he hadn’t given up the wings when he took the shield from Steve.

He spun in the air, bullets whizzing past him.

_ “Your target is coming up on your 6.” _

“Thanks for the tip.” He spun again as the Hill’s voice filled his ear.

He landed, taking out a few more soldiers. They had a symbol on them that looked vaguely like the Hydra one but it wasn’t quite the same. “Who are these guys?”

_ “Oh, come on, Captain, it’s not that hard to figure out.” _

Sam tapped his comm. link and frowned. That definitely wasn’t Hill. “I take these are yours?”

A soft laugh filled his ear as he dropped one of the soldiers. “ _ They’re _ _ * _ _ helpful volunteers. Can’t take over the world without help, right? _ ”

Sam glanced around and noticed Barnes tapping his ear. “Everybody hearing this?”

“ _ Everyone can hear me, Captain. Don’t worry about that. _ ” The woman’s voice seemed almost playful, even as more machine gun fire came from around the nearest corner. “ _ Better run for cover. They’re not going to stop _ .”

“You’re being helpful now?” He fell into his usual pattern when someone threw him off a little.

“Sam…” Barnes made a move that indicated he knew the voice and this was not a good idea. Definitely not a good idea, by the reaction the other man was having. Despite their problems in the beginning, Sam trusted Bucky’s read on situations. If this woman made Bucky nervous, she was serious stuff. Hydra stuff, but definitely serious.

“ _ You should listen to your friend, Captain. _ ” She laughed softly in his ear and it was unsettling to say the least. “ _ He’s smart, when he’s got his brains unscrambled.” _

“You have something to do with that?”

“ _ No. In fact, I can sympathize _ .” The voice in his ear shifted, she sounded angrier but something about her voice told him she wasn’t lying. The look on Barnes’ face said the same thing, though Sam couldn’t tell if he had direct knowledge of that or just believed that Pierce had been capable of it.

“Is that why you’re trying to blow this place up?”

“ _ No, that’s just to get your attention. _ ”

“Well, you’ve got it.”

“ _ Good. I’d hate to waste such a golden opportunity. _ ”

With that, a truck burst through the wall on the far side of the building. Sam heard Bucky, Fury and Hill trying to get any information on who was in there but he was not expecting who jumped out.

It was like a flashback to Lagos.

“ _ What’s the matter, Captain? Not happy to see an old friend? _ ” That laugh filled his ear again as he raced toward the man he’d thought was dead.

“Friend might be pushing it.”

He dodged Rumlow’s fist and rolled away, bringing up the shield to block the next punch. “You’re gonna hurt my feelings, kid.” He chuckled and the laugh was echoed in Sam’s comm link.

“ _ I thought Captain America was supposed to be the good guy _ .” The voice almost giggled. “ _ Being a dick isn’t really on brand. _ ”

“Well, new Cap, new look, I guess.” He slammed the shield into Rumlow. “What do you get out of this joke?”

“ _ Muscle and a lot of orgasms, actually. _ ” Sam heard the laugh again as he vocalized his distaste with that answer. “ _ Don’t ask questions you don’t want honest answers to, Captain _ .”

“Alright,” He rolled away, slamming a few more henchmen down in the process. “Who are you then? You’re feeling so honest.”

She ignored the question. “ _ Might want to get behind the shield _ .”

Before she’d even finished the sentence, the building blew sky high. As his hearing cleared a little he heard her laugh again.

“ _ Every superhero needs a nemesis, Wilson. We’ll meet soon enough. _ ”

**Author's Note:**

> Art by [LittensTinyMittens](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Onasariel/pseuds/LittensTinyMittens)  


**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Art for Legacy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21392617) by [LittensTinyMittens (Onasariel)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Onasariel/pseuds/LittensTinyMittens)


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